emu_kidd, do you have any ideas on my situation/problem I described above?

Basically I have a Viper GC Extreme that I can't program (and I've tried everything) and the GameCube doesn't boot to any Cobra BIOS so either the chip is blank and the programmer is broken, or maybe the chip is dead but I can't tell.

Can I flash a BIOS to an empty Viper GC Extreme using Swiss or anything?

From what I gather if the chip is in fact blank a programmer is the only option for initial setup. If it has a BIOS on it than you have options for your update method. Sucks because I would love to be able to just pop a disc in and be on my way.

emu_kidd, do you have any ideas on my situation/problem I described above?

Basically I have a Viper GC Extreme that I can't program (and I've tried everything) and the GameCube doesn't boot to any Cobra BIOS so either the chip is blank and the programmer is broken, or maybe the chip is dead but I can't tell.

Can I flash a BIOS to an empty Viper GC Extreme using Swiss or anything?

You can't flash it with Swiss because support for that would be a lot of work due to the way they implemented their protection and so on. Viper GC Extreme should have a blue LED that lights up if installed properly.

With all this antiquated hardware you should be using a PC from that era for the best USB/parallel port compatibility.

I'll need to check on the blue LED and see what that shows. Should that be lit regardless of any programming? (ie. blank chip) If so, that should be a quick way to see if the chip/board is completely dead or not.

I went and picked up a Windows XP PRO machine locally for 10 bucks. Got it up and running. Put all the software I needed on there and went to work. I tried the paralell programmer to start with just because I had the option. Well that went over like a fart in church. Even with everything configured properly it just would not work. So I plugged in the usb programmer and installed the unsigned drivers. I clicked the write tab, selected 2.1 BIOS, clicked open and seen it start to erase the chip like before and then start to write. Took about a minute and it was done. I turned on my GC to see the Cobra menu and all was well. I wanted to say thank you to emu_kidid for the advice. It made sense and worked perfectly. Now I can add a Viper to my collection of Cubes.